Posted by Razib Khan on March 31, 2003; This entry is filed under Uncategorized.

Richard Poe and DP (Dienikes Pontikos) are in a littledispute over what race means. About a month back, I was going to review the book Our Kind of People: Inside America’s Black Upper Class by Laurence Otish Graham. I never got to that, but perhaps I’ll hit that at some point time permitting. In any case, I would just like to share a peculiar anecdote out of the book.

Scene: His brother’s wedding. Graham is at the table. A blonde woman approaches and points under his seat. She asks what the deal is with the broom, and Graham replies that the bride and groom will jump over it. It’s an old slave custom. The woman sneers and asks why he’s bringing those “nigger customs” to the wedding. Graham is in shock as the woman walks away. He looks around the table, and wonders aloud how such a racist white woman would be invited to the wedding. One of the people at the table corrects Graham, because you see, the blonde woman went to Howard with the bride, and she’s black. At this point, Graham changes his tune, and he realizes many of the “white” people at the wedding are actually black! They are just part of the black upper class that Graham is a marginal member of himself, and he no longer sees any curiosity in the woman referring to “niggers,” as they are now of her own race, the black race, she being a blonde white-skinned member of that race….

There are many stories like this littered throughout the book, but Graham adhere’s pretty strongly to the dogma of hypodescent, so he doesn’t seem to be very reflective about this bizarro style of thinking. He refers many times to the color caste-system that prevails among the hereditary black upper class, but in the end, he doesn’t seem to criticize it with any great zeal.

5 Comments

It’s true of other blacks as well. I grew up with the Wesorts of Southern Maryland. They were of mixed race: black, American Indian and white. One of them was the principal of a local, public elementary school. He wouldn’t let his daughter date a black man from D.C.! Mind you, the Wesorts were poor or middle class for the most part.

Ditto for the black Creole from Louisiana who I used to work with. Her grandmother didn’t want her blonde, blue-eyed cousin dating a black man.

Very interesting stuff. I read the first few pages on Amazon. In general, I think that there should be renewed study of how phenotype correlates with income, social status, educational achievement, etc. There have been such studies on some aspects of phenotype, such as height, or weight, but I think that researchers are reluctant to investigate racially sensitive aspects such as e.g., skin/eye/hair color, etc. It’d be interesting to first see how things are, before trying to find why they are so.

Question: does the author cite any studies that quantify the phenotypical difference between the black upper class and the rest of the black population?

Richard Poe the Author of a Black Fire White Spark has proven by his recent actions that he is unable to defend and unwilling to defend the premise on which he basis his book. The general theme of Poe’s book is that so called black Egyptians colonized and civilized Europe via ancient Hellas. A recent example of is Poe’s response to Dienekes Pontikos.Dienekes points out some serious flaws regarding Poe’s interpitation of Greek history. Poe rather then defending his position in his book tries to change the topic to how Dienekes defines whiteness or caucasian.

Of course this is typical of Poe when he is confronted. I presented Poe with all factual information regarding the physical anthrometric data of the Greeks since antiquity. It is proven and documented that Greeks since antiquity are composed of various WHITE RACIAL TYPES native to Europe. The leading Physical Anthropologist who have studied the morphology of Greek remains include Carleton Coon ,GL Angel,Aris Poulianos,Baker,Roland Dixon , F. G. Debetz .All are in general agreement general that Greeks since early antiquity have been composed of an Alpine/Dinarid (robust stocky central -southeastern european balkan type ) with strong mediteranean (gracile slim brunette southern european type of the mediteranean coastal areas ) and weak nordic links. ( tall slim Scandinavian or northern european type).When confronted by with the facts I presented him , Poe responded by claiming I was ruthlessly attacking him or that I was rude ect. Poe kept on asking me what the following conclusions from the leading anthropological experts have to do with his book that states afrosemetic roots for Greece. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that if afrosemetic negroid types had a major role in ancient Greece that there would be plenty of skeletal remains uncovered to confirm their presence.Poe does mention GL Angel in his book but he avoids Angel’s basic conclusions. Poe states in his historical fiction book that black Egyptians played a significant role in Mycenaean Greece. However, GL Angel concludes that the central trend of the warrior Aristocracy of Mycenae was a robust Alpine/Dinarid type which Poulianos refers to as an Epiroti type native to northern Greece from the area around Mt Olympus ..http://www.aee.gr/english/4greeks_origin/greeks_origin.html Poe obviously is not mentally capable of comprehending the works of GL Angel .Angel referred to other skeletal types associated with ancient Greece as Iranian Nordic classic Mediterranean ect.Of course Poe avoids discussing such realities because he has very limited knowledge of Greek history .His main source is a propaganda piece written by his idol the MARXIST MARTIN BERNAL called Black Athena.

Martin Bernal an a ASIAN STUDIES instructor who over night became a Classical Greek scholar while he was getting in touch with his called so Semitic CANANITE roots (as Bernal himself states) is Poe’s idea of what a ancient Greek historian is all about.Also Poe’s degree in creative writing (a good degree for writing fiction novels) is his main educational credential for his so called Ancient Greek expertise.So we have an Asian Studies instructor and Journalist trained as a creative writer who claim to have made new discoveries into Greek origins while real classical like Dr Nicholas Hammondhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0%2C4273%2C4165439%2C00.html who have dedicated their life to Classical Greek history have a totally different version.

Now what is the motive of Bernal a Marxist and Poe (A Marxist hiding under a conservative agenda)

Bernal states he does not like the ARYAN theory of German historians. Poe states Neo Nazis are his enemies .Of course we do know that the Nazis did try to link themselves as to ancient Hellas via the Aryan race .Poe and Bernal via their ethnic back round have a valid reason for wanting to fight against NAZI ideology, however, that does not give them the right to rewrite the history of Greek people in order to pursue their crusade. Poe mentions in one of his blogs the following – While I cannot claim to be entirely free of hang-ups, insecurities and unexamined emotions regarding my own somewhat mixed ancestry-http://www.richardpoe.com/blog.php-So Poe has a problem with his somewhat mixed ancestry so he wishes other people to be mongrelized so that he can feel better about his own insecurity from his somewhat mixed ancestry. That explains why Poe got bent out of shape when he was presented with the fact that Greeks have strong genetic continuity with their ancient ancestors.

The following conclusion can be made about Richard Poe –

1. He is an enemy of Greek people since he wishes to distort their history.

2 Poe is a anti white –This is evident since he goes out of his way to disassociate Greek history and
Greek people from the white race despite the evidence that Greeks since recorded history are composed of various white racial types native to the Balkans.

2. Poe has a problem with white pride types so he wishes to purposely and maliciously falsify the
history of Greek people as a means of dealing with his so called enemies.

3 Poe has a problem with his own mixed ancestry as he states himself and he wishes to label people who are not racial mixed as mixed as means of deal with his insecurities.

4 Poe runs away from defending his position when challenged by making accusations that he is being abused or completely changing the topic.

5. Finally the theories mentioned in Poe’s book Black Fire white Spark should be given the same
amount of respect as the Space Alien theories

nothing quantifiable-but the emphasis on the phenotypic difference, and near whiteness of many “upper class blacks” is reccurring. one of the last chapters is even about “passing” (for white that is). graham notes the paradox among the traditional quasi-white black upper class in having contempt for all things african (constant reference to “nigger tendencies,” such as for instance attempting to avoid the worship style characteristic, stereotypically at least, of black americans and following a more higher church episcopal protestant staidness) and pride in their “blackness” combined with a phenotypic whiteness that makes me wonder if these are people that are subject to much racism without their own volition. in other words-they must identify themselves as black before people will realize it.

graham is also preoccupied with his own phenotype, as he notes that it has been “3 generations” before anyone in his family could pass for white-that his skin was darker and his hair texture kinkier than his mulatto grandmother preferred. but he does remember fondly a upper class dance where the light elite were the “beige filling” dancing in the middle of the hall, while the dark-skinned outsiders with jerry curls waited along the edges of the dance hall, these outsiders being let in only at the end of the dance.

more quotations later….

there have been studies btw that show white people are more comfortable around light-skinned blacks, and both blacks & whites associate higher status and more positive qualities to the lighter skinned ones.